Attrition is one of the main concerns in distance learning due to the impact on the incomes and institutions reputation. Timely identification of students at risk has high practical value in effective students' retention services. Big Data mining and machine learning methods are applied to manipulate, analyze and predict students' failure,…

Attrition is one of the main concerns in distance learning due to the impact on the incomes and institutions reputation. Timely identification of students at risk has high practical value in effective students' retention services. Big Data mining and machine learning methods are applied to manipulate, analyze, and predict students' failure,…

Data is a powerful tool for the healthcare industry to use for managing, analyzing, and reporting on critical events in the field. The analysis of broad, salient data files aids healthcare businesses in uncovering hidden patterns, market trends, and customer preferences; these details may then be used to improve the quality and delivery of care to…

There is an increasing interest and growing practice in Citizen Science (CS) that goes along with the usage of websites for communication as well as for capturing and processing data and materials. From an educational perspective, it is expected that by integrating information about CS in a formal educational setting, it will inspire teachers to…

Organizational patterns can serve as a teaching strategy for instructors and as a learning tool for students to develop their expository writing skills, which are commonly required for assignments (for example, laboratory reports and research papers) in Food Science courses and in their future careers. The article discusses the importance of…

This article provides an overview of the ways in which data and text mining have potential as research methodologies in composition studies. It introduces data mining in the context of the field of composition studies and discusses ways in which this methodology can complement and extend our existing research practices by blending the best of what…

Mathematics is rich in visual representations. Such visual representations are the means by which mathematical patterns "are recorded and analyzed." With respect to "vocabulary" and "symbols," numerous educators have focused on issues inherent in the language of mathematics that influence students' success with mathematics communication.…

This article discusses five generally accepted reasons to use data as a part of an educator's ongoing professional practice. Of course, there are many other more specific reasons one might look at data, but these five cover the overarching need in an educational setting. The five major purposes for using data are: (1) To enhance understanding and…

Students are not exposed to enough real-life data. This paper describes how a community of scholars seeks to remedy this deficiency and gives the pedagogical details of an ongoing project that commenced in the Fall 2004 semester. Fostering deep learning, this multiyear project offers a new active-learning, hands-on interdisciplinary laboratory…

As educators, we need to stop fearing data and embrace its power. This article discusses how classroom teachers can design, implement, and analyze longitudinal assessments to diagnose issues related to student achievement and meet the demands of our evolving data-driven educational culture. Practical advice on exam production and data analysis…

In education, data-driven decision making is a buzz word that has come to mean collecting absolutely as much data as possible on everything from attendance to zero tolerance, and then having absolutely no idea what to do with it. Most educational organizations with a plethora of data usually call in a data miner, or evaluator, to make some sense…

This article describes a model that can be used to analyze student enrollment data and can give insights for improving retention of part-time students and refining institutional budgeting and planning efforts. Adult higher-education programs are often challenged in that part-time students take courses less reliably than full-time students. For…

The benefits of using data logging to teach "how science works" are presented. Pedagogical approaches that take advantage of other school ICT are briefly described. A series of simple, quick experiments are given together with their resulting charts. Examples of the questions that arise from the charts show how the rich data lead to the refinement…

University student internships can be an important pre-professional experience for the student and be an immense benefit to an employer. Because of the findings of a 6-Sigma project to reduce engineering errors, a design configurator was to be rebuilt to include updated design information and expanded product coverage. Lacking available full time…

I describe how data pooling and data visualization can be employed in the first-semester general chemistry laboratory to introduce core statistical concepts such as central tendency and dispersion of a data set. The pooled data are plotted as a 1-D scatterplot, a purpose-designed number line through which statistical features of the data are…